{"id":1317412,"date":"2019-12-26T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/not-much-snow-in-the-forecast-for-a-while\/"},"modified":"2019-12-26T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T13:00:00","slug":"not-much-snow-in-the-forecast-for-a-while","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/not-much-snow-in-the-forecast-for-a-while\/","title":{"rendered":"Not much snow in the forecast for a while"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Snowpack so far this year is tracking about with the 30-year average, but there’s a lot of winter to come.<\/strong>
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

VAIL \u2014 People waking up on Christmas morning were treated to a light dusting of snow making for a white Christmas, however not very much accumulation fell. Vail Mountain reported 1 inch overnight for skiers and snowboarders.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not really the definition of powder for Christmas, however it should be celebrated as the National Weather Service called for very few \u201cwhite Christmases\u201d this year across the country.<\/p>\n

The southwestern part of the state could be a different story. Meteorologist Sam Collentine of OpenSnow.com called for a \u201cfirehose of moisture\u201d coming with the system, but most of the snow was expected to remain to the south of Interstate 70 and the Vail Valley.<\/p>\n

The good news is that travelers will probably have to deal mainly with traffic, not weather, making their way to and from Eagle County during the holidays, at least through the weekend.<\/p>\n

Collentine\u2019s forecast called for occasionally wet and icy conditions, with dry conditions returning by today.<\/p>\n

Collentine\u2019s forecast calls for another chance of light snow Friday and Saturday, but not enough to really foul travel conditions.<\/p>\n

Little snow in the forecast<\/p>\n

Norv Larson, a meteorologist in the Grand Junction office of the National Weather Service, said there isn\u2019t much significant snow coming over the next several days, either. A new system could come in from the northwest toward the middle of the week of Dec. 30, but that won\u2019t bring a lot of snow, either.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish there was more (for the Vail Valley),\u201d Larson said. \u201cThis is a better system for the San Juan and West Elk (mountains)\u201d over the next week or so.<\/p>\n

The good news is that area snowpack is solid, although we\u2019re still early in the current snow season.<\/p>\n

As of Monday, the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District was reporting that snowpack \u2014 as measured by the \u201csnow water equivalent\u201d in that snow \u2014 is running close to the 30-year median.<\/p>\n

As of Monday, Vail Mountain\u2019s snow was 97% of the 30-year median. The snow measurement site at Copper Mountain \u2014 the closest site to the headwaters of Gore Creek \u2014 was at 121% of normal. The measurement site at Fremont Pass \u2014 the closest site to the Eagle River\u2019s headwaters \u2014 was at 114% of normal.<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s graphs, while encouraging, also tell us we have a lot of winter left.<\/p>\n

The median snowpack on Vail Mountain generally peaks around April 20. And current snowpack, while tracking with historic averages, is only about one-third of the way to the seasonal peak.<\/p>\n

Still, the early numbers are good.<\/p>\n

What about El Nino?<\/p>\n

But growing the snowpack also relies on continuing snow. Weather forecasters generally don\u2019t make predictions more than about a week in advance. Longer-term looks come from the federal Climate Prediction Center.<\/p>\n

That agency\u2019s current forecasts for the next eight to 14 days show a roughly even chance of average temperature in the area, with a slight chance of above-average precipitation.<\/p>\n

Larson said trends this winter are harder to pin down because there\u2019s neither an El Nino nor La Nina pattern in the Pacific Ocean west of South America.<\/p>\n

El Nino patterns develop with warmer-than-average water temperatures in that region. La Nina patterns are driven by cooler-than-average water temperatures.<\/p>\n

El Nino patterns tend to benefit the southern mountains in Colorado and the Front Range. La Nina patterns generally bring storms out of the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n

Larson said those patterns give weather and climate forecasters \u201csomething you can really hang your hat on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without either pattern present, forecasting is \u201cmore subtle and nuanced,\u201d Larson said, acknowledging that those neutral patterns aren\u2019t clearly understood.<\/p>\n

Essentially storms this winter will develop as they will, and we\u2019ll just have to see what the rest of the season brings.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Snowpack so far this year is tracking about with the 30-year average, but there’s a lot of winter to come. VAIL \u2014 People waking up on Christmas morning were treated to a light dusting of snow making for a white Christmas, however not very much accumulation fell. Vail Mountain reported 1 inch overnight for skiers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1317412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-13 21:49:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}